


To Stand On Solid Ground

by YetButYoungInDeed



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Post-Season/Series 06, Season/Series 06, ish?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-26 03:50:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14992118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YetButYoungInDeed/pseuds/YetButYoungInDeed
Summary: It is only afterwards, when all the adrenaline of the battle has worn off, and they’ve settled for the night on some desolate planet, that Keith allows himself to breathe.(or: Post-season 6, Keith deals with the aftermath)





	To Stand On Solid Ground

It is only afterwards, when all the adrenaline of the battle has worn off, and they’ve settled for the night on some desolate planet, that Keith allows himself to breathe.

He wanders away from the others to a jagged cliff edge. The rock stretches down into darkness, like the canyons he used to find in the desert. He used to sit on the edge of them, legs dangling into the empty space where the ground fell away, and it strikes him now how _stupid_ that was; that he would sit so close to death for no reason other than to escape the feeling of the ground beneath his feet. The rock that could have so easily crumbled away, and he would have fallen, young and angry and scared, slipping into the darkness like his knife slid down the metal, the lurch in his stomach as he looked down at Shiro and though _I can’t carry us both-_

And in one sudden moment, two years and too many months catch up with him.

A sob escapes him, and he sits to steady his body, far away from the cliff edge. The air is thin, and yet he feels it pressing in on him, thick and dark. His body moves without him, and he watches the stranger’s hands grip the legs that are too long, the hair that comes too far down his face covering his vision. He hurts. The aches and pains from the battle envelop him, until he can no longer tell where he is bruised and where he is bleeding. All he knows is pain and confusion and _his face hurts like hell_ from the burn, the crackle of skin and the smell of smouldering flesh. The look in Shiro’s ( _not_ Shiro’s) eyes, cold, until they weren’t, until they were so warm and real and afraid, until they stared at the sparking remains of right arm and drifted up to Keith and he though _Oh my god what have I done-_

“Keith.”

He breathes.

He breathes, in and out, cold alien air. A figure appears beside him - blue armour, _Lance_ – and he waits as Keith begins to gather himself from the floor.

He feels awkward. Wrong – to stand up from where he was curled up crying on the ground and be at Lance’s full height. But Lance just watches him, silent. Understanding.

Sometimes Keith wonders if those two years weren’t so short for the others after all.

“Is Shiro-“

“He’s still asleep,” Lance says. “Allura reckons he’ll be out for another few hours.” He gestures over to where the team set up, the dark silhouettes of the lions just visible against the tawny-coloured sky. “I’m here to invite you to dinner.”

“You asking me out on a date?”

A look of surprise crosses Lance’s face, before he laughs. “I can’t believe it. After all this time, I finally get to witness it – Keith Kogane’s making a _joke_!  I never thought I’d see the day.”

Keith laughs, and some of the tension in his shoulders eases.

“Come on,” says Lance, “the food goo’s getting cold.”

 

***

 

“You need some salve for that?” Pidge asks, eyeing Keith’s scar. He looks up, halfway through a mouthful of food goo (it still tastes exactly the same – that flavourless jello rip-off has no right to make him so nostalgic) and his hand involuntarily rises to hover around his face.

“Oh, uh, no. It’s fine. It’s mostly healed anyway.”

Healed. Cauterised. Same difference.

“Okay,” she shrugs, turning back to her own bowl. “Just don’t blame me if it gets infected.”

“Ugh, I forgot things can get infected,” says Hunk. “I’m really gonna miss the healing pods.”

Keith, in varying degrees of pain from his fight with not-Shiro, agrees.

“I’m gonna miss the training deck,” says Lance, “How am I gonna keep up all this muscle now?” He flexes, and Keith laughs, because even after all this time, Lance is still a fucking _stick._

“Are you mocking me, Kogane?” he narrows his eyes.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He smiles to himself as they continue their teasing, the sounds of his teammates’ laughter colouring the empty planet with life.

Only the absence of Shiro stops him from relaxing completely.

 

***

 

They’ve set up camp in a small cave on the surface of the planet, not unlike the one he and Krolia lived in. She and Romelle help Coran construct their temporary shelter whilst Allura watches over Shiro. They’ll rest here tonight, and then head for Earth first thing tomorrow. He doesn’t know if Romelle will come with them, or if she’ll ask to be taken home. He doesn’t know if Krolia will fly her back, if she’ll return to the blades or come to see what remains of her home on Earth.

He is too tired to ask.

Instead, he makes his way into the back of the cave, to where a combination of bags, clothes and blankets salvaged from the castle have been fashioned into a bed for Shiro.

He is still asleep.

“He’ll be okay,” says Allura, as Keith watches the rhythmic rise and fall of Shiro’s chest.

“Will he…remember? What the clone saw, will he remember that?”

Allura looks down at Shiro. “I don’t know,” she admits.  “I’ve never heard of anything like this done before – I can only guess as to what will happen to him.”

“But he’ll be okay?”

“He’ll be okay.”

Keith nods.

“The clone…” he begins, and Allura stills beside him. “He’s gone.”

“Yes.” she says. “The arm was Haggar’s way of anchoring her connection to him. When you-” she pauses awkwardly, eyes drifting to Shiro’s shoulder, “well, when he lost it, that connection was severed.”

“But before that, before Haggar got control of him, he wasn’t – he wasn’t bad. He wasn’t Shiro but… he wasn’t bad.”

Keith remembers the warmth of not-Shiro’s body as they hugged before he left, the softness of his voice – _“We’re here for you”_ – the concerned but thankful look in his eyes when he returned.

He remembers the arguments, the cold shoulder, the rift between them that had never been there before.

He remembers a _person._

A person who is no longer there.

“I know.” Allura‘s voice is faint. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Keith says. His gaze is fixed on Shiro, his sleeping, _living_ form before him, and the relief can almost smother the guilt that stings inside of him. “I’m sorry too.”

 

***

 

He doesn’t sleep.

The ground is hard and uneven, and the other paladins vocally mourn the loss of their beds. But Keith’s body feels as though it’s held together by a thread, one that will snap as soon as he hits solid ground, so he expects sleep to come easy.

Keith is learning, slowly, to stop expecting things. He’s often (always) wrong.

Gravity claims a hold of him the second he lies down, but his mind stays wide awake, replaying scenes of the battle, loud and violent. Frustration builds in him - _I need to sleep. I need to be ready for tomorrow. I need to lead them in case Shiro doesn’t-_

Shiro will wake up.

Obviously.

 _But maybe not in time,_ he thinks, so _I_ _need to sleep_.

But whatever sun this planet orbits falls and he’s still awake hours later. He gives up eventually, lying with eyes open and staring aimlessly at the cave’s ceiling. He listens to the sounds of the people around him - the paladins curled up close to each other on his right, Allura and Coran to his left, Romelle a small distance behind them. Krolia (the word “Mum” still feels foreign on his lips) keeps watch outside, their wolf with her. She rarely needs sleep, and Keith wonders vaguely if that’s a Galra thing, and if so, why he didn’t inherit it. It would certainly be useful right now.

Shiro is at the back of the cave. Allura had wanted to stay up in case he awoke, but Coran manged to convince her to rest.

“I’m sure I’ll hear it if he stirs,” Krolia assured them as they settled down to sleep. “I’ll wake someone,” she’d said, her eyes meeting his across the cave as he gave a small nod in return.

She doesn’t have to, in the end, because when Shiro does come to, Keith is up like a bullet, all aches and pains forgotten.

“Shiro,” he whispers, and watches as his eyes flicker open.

“Keith.”

He smiles, and finally, for the first time, Keith says with absolute conviction, “We’re gonna be okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> so, uh, season 6 was wild. episode five just flat out _killed me dead_ in the best way possible. also disclaimer i have no idea what either space goo or jello taste like but i assume it's similar  
>  comments are appreciated if you feel like it!!


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